On Apr 21, 2005, at 9:47 AM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote:
At 11:18 AM Thursday 4/21/2005, Nick Arnett wrote:On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 10:21:00 -0500, Dan Minette wrote
> Then what is morality? A long list of rules? My basis for morality > is "love neighbor as self"
There's a commandment that comes ahead of that for me, which has to do with loving God.
Which of course, at the risk of both stating the exceedingly obvious and fanning the flames of [flame]war, is the issue at the heart of the matter.
Hee!
You and I and other believers put "loving God" at the head of the list, and it generally follows from that that God is the source of the standards by which right and wrong are measured.
There are two big ifs there, I think, or rather, two variables that you might have overlooked.
1. The meaning of "loving God" is subject to individual interpretation. To you loving your god might mean (in part) behaving as compassionately as you know how; to an extreme Jihadist, loving his god means (in part) eliminating the forces of Satan by any means necessary. To a charismatic Baptist loving God means (in part) turning homosexuals into a legally- and socially-persecuted caste, or at best relegating them to "separate but equal" status. Thus we can't reasonably derive absolute conclusions based in even the apparently simple idea of loving a deity.
2. If, as you suggest, a god is the source of standards for measure of right and wrong actions, we're again in some kind of trouble, because -- as is abundantly clear -- there are many interpretations available within just the *Christian* traditions of what standards have come from that god in the first place, let alone how they should be followed. Elsewhere I commented that the commandment against killing is fairly easily worked around, even by those who believe it comes from a literal, existing, loving god, and despite its relatively unambiguous phrasing.
I think a very big trap many faithful fall into is the belief that there are, in reality, moral absolutes which apply in all circumstances. The problem is that in practice, it doesn't seem to be so; and certainly with so many branches of faith all interpreting those "absolutes" differently, the conceit that one religion has it right and all the others don't -- while common -- is, to me, extraordinarily dangerous to hold. There's an abundance of prima facie evidence to support my view on that.
Those who do not believe in God, and indeed in many cases are of the opinion that those who profess a belief in God are deluded, mentally ill, or not thinking rationally, argue that any attempt to establish the standard of right and wrong by reference to the words of an imaginary being is nonsensical.
If the atheists are correct and there are no gods, it doesn't necessarily follow that the tenets of religion are worthless. The only thing that happens is the philosophies of religion become words written by humans, rather than sourced in divine authorship.
They aren't automatically shorn of merit; nor, I think, would most of their interpretations significantly change, because as I mentioned they're already variably understood even under the *current* premise that they're sourced in the intentions of a god.
(What would have to go is the literalist interpretation of some passages, such as a literal six-day creation or a literal world-girdling flood, as opposed to metaphorical understandings; but losing those literal views would not, I think, have a negative effect on the rest of the Christian library. The same can be said of other scriptures in other traditions.)
As to whether believers are deluded, mentally ill or not thinking rationally -- that depends very much on the individual case. For instance I see a vast difference between the statements Nick makes, based in his understanding of his faith, versus the declaration from Pat Robertson that homosexuals and pagans were (essentially) the reason the terrorists were able to succeed in their attacks in 2001.
Nick is being reasonable. Robertson is *at best* deluded. I think there are many many people of faith who would agree with me on both of those assessments.
Though I agree that following the Second Great Commandment is a good guide to morality, one problem if that occurs if we rely on the judgement of mortals only is that it is not always clear or easy to determine in every case what it means to 'love our neighbor as ourself."
True -- and as I suggested above, even loving one's god is not sufficient to determine absolutely what is good or bad behavior.
This suggests to me that some other scale be used, or perhaps a broader one; sourced perhaps in one's faith, but willing to concede that others have a right to believe or disbelieve as they choose, and that however sure one is of one's god, there's always a chance for error -- not even as far as whether one's god exists; there's always the possibility that one is misunderstanding what that god means, that burning witches or bombing train stations is really not what the deity smiles upon after all.
Presuming there is a God, and He/She/It fits the standard job description for such a Being, e.g., Creator of the Universe, etc., then presumably God is unique. If so, perhaps the way to do away with such misunderstandings is for us to do away with trying to understand the nature of God and what He/She/It wants through intellectual discussion and debate and rather go to the source and ask God for an understanding of His/Her/Its nature and what He/She/It wants for us to do, how He/She/It wants us to relate to each other, what His/Her/Its standards are for "right" and "wrong", etc. Of course, that takes a certain amount of humility on the part of each human to admit that his or her personal concept of God may indeed not be correct and to approach God, perhaps following the example of the father of king Lamoni:
"And it came to pass that when Aaron had said these words, the king did bow down before the Lord, upon his knees; yea, even he did prostrate himself upon the earth, and cried mightily, saying: O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day." (Book of Mormon | Alma 22:17 - 18)
-- Ronn! :)
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